Correspondent
IMPHAL, May 21
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]anipur’s human rights activist Irom Sharmila, who has been on a hunger strike for more than a decade, on Wednesday expressed her desire to meet Prime Minister designate Narendra Modi on the sideline of her visit to national capital on May 27.
Sharmila conveyed her desire to meet Modi after she was produced before the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate(CJM), Imphal East Lamphelpat here in connection with a charge sheet hearing of her case on Wednesday.
“I hope the new government under leadership of Narendra Modi will listen to my voice against the AFSPA because the people give the vote for a change,” says Sharmila. “So this time I like to meet him(Modi).”Sharmila will be leaving Imphal on May 27 to appear before the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, Patiala Court in New Delhi on May 28. She would be accompanied by a doctor, two nurses, a women police team and two jail officials in New Delhi.
On May 13, CJM court in Imphal has allowed Sharmila to appear before the Patiala house court in New Delhi in connection with a pending case against her for staging a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in October 2006.
For the first time, the state government’s prosecution has submitted a chargesheet against Sharmila, seeking her punishment under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code. As no chargesheet was filed against her till now, she was never convicted of attempting to commit suicide. Sharmila who is presently being forced fed through her noses at JNIMS security ward in Imphal, said her struggle is for the cause of human rights and not an attempt to commit suicide as the police have been falsely claiming.Later the CJM court fixed May 24 for the final hearing of the chargesheet hearing case.
Sharmila is on a fast unto death agitation since November 2000 to have the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act repealed.The act provides unlimited powers to security forces to shoot at sight and arrest anybody without a warrant. She launched an indefinite hunger strike in 2000 after she heard the killing of 10 people by Assam Rifles soldiers in Malom village on the outskirts Imphal.
